Growing Good: Fresh Food from The Community Market Garden

At The Community Market, access to fresh food begins long before produce reaches the shelves. It begins in the soil, with seeds, volunteers, sunshine, water, and a shared belief that everyone in our community deserves nourishing, beautiful, and culturally meaningful food.

The Community Market Garden is one way Eagle Valley Community Foundation brings that belief to life. Each growing season, the garden helps provide fresh herbs and produce for local families while also creating a space for connection, learning, and care. What grows here is more than food. It is dignity. It is health. It is community.

Fresh produce plays an important role in supporting overall wellness, especially for families navigating the rising cost of groceries. Fruits, vegetables, and herbs add flavor, color, vitamins, minerals, and fiber to everyday meals. They also help stretch household budgets by making simple ingredients like beans, rice, soups, eggs, or tortillas more nourishing and delicious.

One special crop growing in the garden is epazote, an herb deeply rooted in Mexican and Latin American cooking. Known for its strong, earthy aroma and distinctive flavor, epazote is often used in black beans, frijoles de olla, quesadillas, soups, and stews. For many families, it is a familiar ingredient tied to home, tradition, and recipes passed down through generations.

Epazote is also a powerful example of why culturally relevant food matters. Food access is not just about calories or quantity. It is about making sure families can prepare meals that reflect their culture, memories, and preferences. When community members find ingredients like epazote at The Community Market, they are able to cook food that feels familiar, comforting, and meaningful.

Nutritionally, epazote contains fiber and small amounts of important vitamins and minerals, including calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, vitamin C, and folate. Because it is typically used as an herb in small amounts, its greatest everyday benefit is the way it helps make healthy meals more flavorful and enjoyable. Traditionally, epazote is also added to beans because many cooks believe it supports digestion and helps reduce the bloating sometimes associated with legumes.

Like many herbs, epazote is best enjoyed in normal culinary amounts. A few leaves added to a pot of beans, soup, or stew can bring bold flavor and cultural connection to a meal.

The Community Market Garden reminds us that food security is about abundance in every sense of the word. It is about fresh ingredients, choice, cultural connection, and care. Every harvest reflects the hands and hearts of volunteers, staff, and community members working together to make nutritious food more accessible across Eagle County.

From leafy greens and vegetables to herbs like epazote, each item grown and shared through the garden helps nourish families and strengthen our community. Together, we are growing good, one seed, one harvest, and one meal at a time.

To support The Community Market and help increase access to fresh, healthy food for local families, consider volunteering, donating, or sharing this work with someone who believes in a stronger, healthier Eagle County.